Jack's Black Book

by Jack Gantos

“I won’t kill you ‘cause you been nice to me,” he said. “But if you say one word to the cops I’ll have Savage Sam tattoo Jack sucks’ on your forehead. So just keep your mouth shut.”

  “Okay,” I croaked.

  Then he jumped up and ran back to the mobile home.

  I hopped up onto my feet and watched as he coasted down the road like a silent ballistic missile searching out a target.

  That was the last anyone ever saw of him for forty-eight hours, until election day.

  Five

  Mr. Pagoda had another secret weapon. Sympathy. For the last two days before the election he went on television pleading for his son to come back. He even suggested that Mr. Woody had something to do with his disappearance. And somehow he managed to ask for people’s votes while the Pomeranians sat on his lap like electrocuted wigs.

  “I told you,” Dad said. “Politicians will say anything to get elected.”

  Mr. Pagoda’s sympathy request couldn’t counter Mr. Woody’s commercials. He’d shown an infant crawling across the Pagoda Pet Pad when zap! the tot flew backward like a fish being jerked out of water.

  The next day everyone went to the polls. And that evening I went over to the Pagoda house for the election party.

  Mr. and Mrs. Pagoda, Frankie, Susie, and I were all squeezed onto the Pagoda couch watching the TV and waiting for the final ballot results. Right from the beginning it didn’t look good for Mr. Pagoda. And an hour later he called Mr. Woody and conceded. In a few minutes all the local news stations announced that Mr. Woody would declare his victory.

  As Mr. Woody stood out on his front yard answering questions from the press someone suddenly yelled, “Look out!” Mr. Woody and everyone dove for cover as Gary drove across the lawn in his mobile home, which had flames streaming from the windows. It looked like the explosion of the Hindenburg zeppelin we had seen in a history-class movie. The TV cameraman caught it all, even the flaming SilverStream roaring away down the street.

  We just sat there. Stunned.

  “I hope he didn’t hurt himself,” said Mrs. Pagoda.

  “And he was doing so well,” said Mr. Pagoda. “This is really depressing. But I’m glad that thing was a rental.”

  Frankie looked at me and winked. Then he reached down under the skirt of the couch and removed the Pet Pad transformer, and before I could stand up he gave it a full blast. Wham! All of us were suddenly jolted off the couch and onto the floor. We knocked over the coffee table, the dog trophies, the framed dog photos, and their collection of Avon dog-shaped cologne bottles.

  “Mercy me,” said Mr. Pagoda. We all crawled away in a daze on our hands and knees as if leaving a car wreck.

  Suddenly Mr. Pagoda jumped to his feet. “That’s just the kick in the butt I needed,” he hollered. “I’m not finished yet. I’m going to mount a comeback!”

  “With what?” Mrs. Pagoda asked wearily. “We’re broke from the election, and the remodeling, and the cars, and can’t sell any more Pet Pads after Mr. Woody did us in, and God only knows what trouble Gary has caused.”

  Mr. Pagoda scratched his head. “I need a new pet product to sell. Something new to market.” He looked out at all of us who were standing around him. “Now, which one of you has a good idea?” he asked.

  And that’s where I stepped in like the bigmouthed idiot I am. “I’ve got an idea,” I said. “How about a dog coffin?”

  Mr. Pagoda looked at me with wide eyes. “Brilliant!” he shouted. “Sensational! That’s a million-dollar idea, son. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  I was so caught up by his enthusiasm I said, “I have one at home already designed and everything.”

  “Great,” he said, and clapped his hands together. “Bring it over and we’ll work on the details.”

  “We’ve got to split the profits fifty-fifty,” I insisted, striking a deal while it was hot.

  He stuck out his hand and we shook. I was grinning from ear to ear. I’m going to be a millionaire, I sang to myself. Then I danced a little dance as if I were doing a jig around a pot of gold.

  “Now you’ve got the Pagoda spirit,” said Mr. Pagoda.

  About ten minutes later, as I rode my bike home, a police car drove by with Gary in the back seat. I wasn’t much help to him after all, I thought. Neither was his therapy tape. He was going to have to straighten up all by himself.

  Now, as I sat in the dark backyard, breathing English Leather cologne through a handkerchief, I knew I couldn’t dig BeauBeau back up, not for any amount of money. BeauBeau was dead and buried. It was time for me to leave him rest in peace. And time for me to move on.

  The weird thing about the Pagodas, I thought, is that our family was like theirs. Not in the small ways, but in the big ways. There they were, having made it, having some money and some chance to do something different. Something better. But they didn’t. Just like us, they could figure out how to make money, but they couldn’t figure out how to use that money to change their lives. Not just by buying a bigger house or fancier car, but changing who they were, how they behaved, what they wanted to become. That was our problem, too. Dad could sometimes figure out a way to make money, but it never really changed us, or solved our problems. And so somehow, just as he figured how to make it, he also lost it. Just like the Pagodas. Maybe it wasn’t about money at all. It was all about ideas. About who you were, and what you wanted to do with your life, what you wanted to become, and how much you love being yourself.

  I stood up, held my breath, and quickly spread the dirt back over the grave. I tamped it down with my foot, my foot with the dog-tattooed toe. “I’ve changed my mind,” I whispered.

  I returned to the garage, stripped down naked, and threw my smelly clothes in the trash. I tiptoed through the house and into the bathroom, where I took a long hot shower to wash everything away. Tomorrow, I said to myself, I’m going to wake up and everything is going to be exactly the same, except for me.